Laredo Welcomes Our New Overlords!

"Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over -- 'conquered' if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." Kent Brockman

Source: Laredo Morning Times

UISD seeks new answers: Daring program would force English, Spanish

Laredo - Due to a large number of parental concerns, United Independent School District (UISD) officials expect to table an item at tonight’s board meeting that would radically alter how children are taught in school.Starting this fall, all kinder students would be required to take science and health in English, and math and social studies in Spanish.

This would affect all United Independent School District students, regardless of what they speak at home.

“I’m going to ask that this be tabled until we go to all the schools and have meetings and talk to parents and explain this program to them,” Board Trustee Pat Campos said Tuesday.

The program, known as Dual Language, would be implemented at all 26 UISD elementary schools. It would begin with kindergarten and progress to the next grade level, each year thereafter until 12th grade.

Language arts would be taught in the student’s primary language, as required by state law.

By the time students reach second grade, UISD hopes to have 50 percent of all classroom instruction in English and 50 percent in Spanish, said Pamela R. Juarez, UISD associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

All students would likely take the math and social studies portions of the TAKS in Spanish, UISD officials explained this week.

Some parents have expressed fear and concern over the proposal.

“This should raise a red flag for parents because I’m not sure parents are fully aware of all the details involving this drastic change,” said one parent who asked to not be identified since she is a local science educator.

Juarez replied that parents would have the option to decide whether or not to have their students participate in Dual Language.

“That’s a choice parents are going to have to make,” Juarez said Tuesday. “If parents want to deny their kids this benefit, then of course, we’re going to have to service their child in a traditional way and we will have a plan as to how we will do that.”

But Juarez expressed deep frustration with the public’s lack of understanding of Dual Language and its benefits.

“How can we change the limited, subtractive mentality of our community?” Juarez said.

“This program will help every student master English and Spanish, and our goal, is to hopefully, years from now, go multilingual and add a third language to our district,” she added.

Most UISD elementary students — nearly 65 percent, or more than three out of every five — are Spanish dominant, according to district data, and the district receives a significant amount of revenue for bilingual education.

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Juarez said she believes parents will embrace Dual Language once they hear about its benefits, citing higher student test scores on the TAKS and college entrance exams, such as the SAT and ACT.

Like a tsunami folks, a well planned, well funded, "totally natural" Tsunami! Oh, and corrupt, I almost forgot corrupt!

h/t immigration watchdog


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